December 19, 2023 — The health benefits of eating seafood are appreciated in many cultures which rely upon it to provide critical nutrients vital to our physical and mental development and health. Eating fish and shellfish provides significant benefits to neurological development and functioning and provides protection against the risks of coronary heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.
You might think all the rain that comes with the storm systems known as atmospheric rivers or Pineapple Expresses would be good for fish.
But tribal biologists say major floods have hit salmon-bearing rivers hard two out of the past three autumns, at a time when freshly laid Chinook salmon eggs are incubating in their underwater nests.
“We’ve had two flooding events that, over three years, have hit during this time that we know all the Chinook eggs are in the gravels,” said fisheries researcher Mike LeMoine with the Skagit River System Cooperative, a project of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle Tribes. “It’s right after Chinook complete their spawning.”
Extreme flows can kill salmon eggs in two ways: scouring eggs and their shallow nests out of a riverbed or entombing them in mud.
“A big event will deposit a bunch of sediment over the top of the eggs and smother them, and they call that entombment,” said Jason Griffith, a Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians biologist.